Buckles and blunderbuss: Museum celebrates Pilgrims

Pilgrim Hall Museum’s newly designed celebration of the Pilgrim forefathers contains some of the most precious artifacts in American history.

Rich Harbert

Pilgrim Hall Museum’s newly designed celebration of the Pilgrim forefathers contains some of the most precious artifacts in American history.

Henry Sargent’s gigantic painting, "Landing of the Pilgrims," is considered the first grand scale history painting in America.

A sword thought to belong to Myles Standish sits under glass nearby. The sword’s 1149 date led the likes of Longfellow to connect the captain of the Pilgrim militia to the Crusades.

And just inside the front door sits a great wooden chair thought to have been carried across the Atlantic Ocean on the Mayflower by Gov. William Carver.

It is only on closer inspection that visitors to the museum notice that Sargent incorrectly painted a Native American greeting the Pilgrims months before their actual first local encounter.

A plaque explains that the 12th century date on the sword is actually from an Arabic calendar. The sword was actually forged in the late 1700s, long after Standish died.

And the chair that has come to symbolize earliest American style was finally tested. The wood is American ash, not English oak. And those first comers certainly had no time to turn out chairs with turned spindles before Carver died in the spring of 1621.

The flaws in the Pilgrim story may be missed by the casual tourist, but they are a story unto themselves to visitors at the new Pilgrim Hall Museum.

Downstairs, in newly appointed exhibits, the museum offers a splendidly factual look at the Pilgrims and how they survived against great odds in their new home. But upstairs, in the grand room of the Greek Revival “temple” erected in 1824 to honor the Pilgrims, the myth of the Pilgrims is gloriously alive.

Visitors need not worry about getting slapped down by the political correctness police here. The myths perpetuated by bygone generations are embraced in all their big buckle and blunderbuss glory.

“This is our celebration room, why we all think we know the Pilgrims and definitely why we love them,” Pilgrim Hall Museum Director Peggy Baker said. Visitors are invited to explore the story as it changes over time, searching through the multi-faceted layers to find the 17th century foundation.

For older visitors this floor of the museum will feel very comfortable. The walls are covered with historic paintings that depict the Pilgrims in the kindest light. "Embarkation of the Pilgrims," Edgar Parker’s reproduction of the Edgar Weir painting, shows the Pilgrims dressed in 19th century finery, even though modern research suggests their attire was considerably more humble.

Paintings in the Thanksgiving alcove generally tend to downplay the role of the Native Americans who made it all possible. The most famous, Jennie Brownscombe’s "The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth" (1914) helped shape the modern perception of the holiday after it appeared in Life magazine.

The painting has several historical inconsistencies, like a Sioux feather headdresses on the Wampanoag guests and a log cabin in place of the Pilgrims’ wattle and daub dwellings. But the painting nevertheless retains a strong emotional appeal and captures the spirit of cooperation that existed between the Pilgrims and Native Americans in the early years of the settlement.

The exhibit includes a section on the storied romance of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, complete with one of the spinning wheels that erroneously came to symbolize Priscilla’s virtuous spirit. The colony had no spinning wheels.

Another alcove explores the early recognition of the Pilgrims as important symbols of the nation. Letters from Samuel Adams and John Hancock of the Committee of Correspondence prior to the Revolutionary War called on Plymoutheans to set an example worthy of their good stock for the rest of the independently minded colonists.

The centerpiece of the exhibit is an island of mannequins dressed as passing generations imagined. The earliest wore the garb of 19th century well-to-do. The image of Pilgrims through the first half of the 20th century is marked by belt-buckle hats and blunderbusses.

Research by the Pilgrim Society’s Rose Briggs as well as folks at Plimoth Plantation gave rise to the drabber reality scholars now think was more likely the Pilgrim’s daily attire. Baker said she expects even today’s best guesses may someday be superseded by more historically accurate representations. But that seems to be part of the fun.

From the days of the revolution to today, succeeding generations have looked to the story for inspiration and guidance, changing the perception from reality for their own needs, Baker said. Often, these later interpretations say less about the Pilgrims than their descendants.

The Pilgrim Society has long been aware of the differences between myth and reality but nonetheless mingled the stories in the old exhibit. It wasn’t until the society secured a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to refurbish its exhibits that the different themes were addressed.

A long-weekend retreat with exhibit designers and a panel of scholars finally exposed the obvious. And with that one decision, the plan for a celebration upstairs and historically accurate examination downstairs took shape. (The newspaper will explore the downstairs exhibit next weekend.)

Eric Getz, project manager for Christopher Chadbourne Associates, the exhibit designer, said the old exhibit had a well-intentioned homespun feel, but just didn’t give the artifacts the play they deserve. The Sparrow-Hawk, the remains of a 17th century trans-Atlantic ship, for instance, used to take up nearly a quarter of the main gallery.

The Sparrow-Hawk is on loan to a museum on Cape Cod. The space is partly filled with a large chunk of Plymouth Rock that has a sign welcoming visitors to “Please Touch!”

Baker likes the way the new exhibit lets families from around the country enjoy the Pilgrim story they grew up with while offering a clearer sense of what really happened at the same time.

“I detest debunking. It makes people feel dumb,” Baker said. “No one wants to come here with their kids and have someone tell them everything they thought they knew was wrong.”

Pilgrim Hall Museum opens for the 2008 season today. The museum is located at 75 Court St.

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